Blogvember day 10: Colour from Sussex Prairie Garden

These are October pictures – the Sussex Prairie Garden is closed now until June 1st 2024. But, as you can see, the season goes out with a blaze of colour – really spectacular place to wander around in, way more impressive than I was expecting – very calm, relaxed surroundings, definitely to be recommended for next year. It is a ‘new’ garden, designed and planted in the 20th and 21st centuries in West Sussex. It now claims to be the largest ‘prairie’ garden in Britain with 8 acres containing 35,000 plants – all apparently put there by friends and family of the owners! Quite a vision.

I had a magic afternoon, turning corner after dramatic corner – almost enough to get us through the grim grey that seems to have surrounded us ever since in the UK – and plenty of ideas for those dye baths!

Day 9: Hinton Ampner

Another National Trust house with fabulous gardens. Feeling a bit nostalgic about this one – for some years I’ve been a regular visitor. It’s been a useful (calming) stopover coffee place on my way to visit my parents, and more recently to help clear my childhood home. But now that the house is dealt with and my mother has moved into residential care many miles away, I no longer have any reason to be in this part of the country. It all feels pretty strange – but at least it’s not so overwhelming as clearing out the belongings of someone who has died.

For me, Hinton Ampner (near Winchester) is mostly about the gardens – but the house is pretty too. It is on a smaller, more domestic scale than a lot of NT places, so it is perfectly possible to imagine living there. That drawing room has wonderful windows with fabulous views on two sides – and those sofas are very enticing!

Plus, the NT shortbread is up to standard….

Blogvember day 8: Drama in the outlines

Not sure where this is all heading (geometric quilts? twisted stitch patterns? more dye bath possibilities?) but the pictures I am taking at the moment, from street scenes to modern art, seem to be full of lines – if not always straight ones!

I had hoped to get some decent autumn shots this year, but between the relentless grey gloom, family events at weekends and finally storm Cieràn seeing off the leaves, it doesn’t seem likely. Sheffield Park (National Trust, about 20 miles away) is probably our closest reliably dramatic woodland -some years it can be spectacular. I took these a few seasons ago.

I think it’s the lake reflections that do the trick! This was actually the photo that inspired the knitwear in the centre of the first set of pictures.

Out of time

Struggling as usual with WP – and now, at nearly midnight, I have a choice of sneaking out of Blogvember after one week, or just marking a place with the photos I posted on Etsy earlier.

Hand warmers remain a mystery to me. Of course, I understand about seasonal fluctuations (though actually on a global platform like Etsy it is always winter somewhere ….) but I have noticed that sales of hand/wrist warmers follow a curious pattern. Once they start to sell, they simply fly away – followed by what can be a lengthy lull. Must be something about fashion – which is something I am more than happy to ignore.